Alessandra is just back from a two-week mission, as a technical expert in the context of TSPA’s support for KfW’s portfolio for sustainable development in Rwanda.
The team visited multiple districts across the country, to discuss locally adapted solutions for the challenges that we find in many places across the world: rapid urbanisation, protection of wetlands and biosphere, increasing urban heat, and changing lifestyles
Here we find much inspiration: the approach of ‘radical terraces’ to retain rainwater on terraced agricultural fields, the example of Nyandungu Park in Kigali, a groundbreaking example for an eco-park in East-Africa.
We continue to explore: How can we integrate nature within the urban fabric as part of daily life? How can we update the understanding of nature in the city not as a threat or as a decoration, but as an enriching benefit, that can help to deal with climate or health challenges? How can we create spaces that serve communities, are for everyone—women, children, old people, families and individuals—as well as fulfilling their role to absorb water, cool the city, or provide space for biodiversity or livelihood?
